"Only your calamity": The beginnings of activism by and for people with AIDS
J. Wright
American Journal of Public Health, 2013, vol. 103, issue 10, 1788-1798
Abstract:
The invention of AIDS activism came soon after the AIDS epidemic emerged in gay communities in the United States in the early 1980s. AIDS activism by and for people with AIDS, distinct from gay activism responding to the threat of AIDS on the behalf of the whole community, started as a way of resisting the phenomenon of social death. Social death, in which people are considered "as good as dead" and denied roles in community life, posed a unique threat to people with AIDS. An organized political response to AIDS began among gay men with AIDS in San Francisco, California, and New York, New York, formalized in a foundational document later called the Denver Principles. The ideas and language of these first people with AIDS influenced later AIDS activism movements. They also help to illustrate the importance of considering an epidemic from the point of view of people with the disease.
Keywords: acquired immune deficiency syndrome; article; history; human; human rights; male; patient advocacy; social discrimination; United States, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; History, 20th Century; Human Rights; Humans; Male; Patient Advocacy; Social Discrimination; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301381
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2013.301381_4
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301381
Access Statistics for this article
American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia
More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().